HAYNES ET AL.TEMPORAL FRAMING

THE EFFECTS OF TEMPORAL FRAMINGON COUNTERFACTUAL THINKINGAND SELF–APPRAISAL:AN INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES PERSPECTIVE

Graeme A. Haynes, Richard M. Sorrentino, James M. Olson,Andrew C. H. Szeto, J. Sirkka Wirkki, and Melissa C. O’ConnorUniversity of Western Ontario

The present research examined the impact of temporal framing on twoforms of self–reflection: counterfactual thinking and temporal self–ap-praisal. The possible moderating role of individual difference variables onthese processes was also investigated. Participants recalled either a posi-tive or a negative event from their past, which was then temporally framedto seem either psychologically recent or distant. Thinking about a negativeevent was expected to produce more upward counterfactual thoughts andmore derogation of the past self than thinking about a positive event, espe-cially when the event was framed as recent. The results supported thesepredictions, but individual differences in uncertainty orientation andachievement motivation moderated the findings. Only uncertainty–ori-ented or failure–threatened participants exhibited heightened generationof upward counterfactual thoughts and greater derogation of the past selffollowing a negative event framed as recent. The findings document thelink between counterfactual thinking and temporal self–appraisal andunderscore the importance of an individual differences perspective.

In the movie Back to the Future, the protagonist, Marty McFly, getsseveral opportunities to go back in time to undo errors he and oth-

Social Cognition, Vol. 25, No. 3, 2007, pp. 339-366

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The research reported in this article was supported by research grants to the second andthird authors from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Theauthors would like to thank Neal Roese for his comments on a previous version of themanuscript. Correspondence concerning this manuscript should be addressed to GraemeA. Haynes, Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Can-ada, N6A 5C2. E–mail: jolson@uwo.ca

ers made in the past. In real life, of course, there are no magic timemachines, and all we can do is contemplate “what might havebeen.” These reflections about how events might have turned outdifferently are called counterfactual thoughts and have been the fo-cus of much research by social psychologists (e.g., see Roese &Olson, 1995). Ruminating about missed opportunities and pastfailures may be maladaptive (e.g., Davis et al., 1995), but thinkingin a more controlled way about how outcomes might have beendifferent “if only” alternative actions had been undertaken canserve an adaptive function (e.g., Markman, Gavanski, Sherman,& McMullen, 1993).

The present research extends previous work on counterfactualthinking in three ways. First, we explored its connections to an-other form of self–reflection: thinking about changes over time. Inaddition to imagining how events might have turned out differ-ently, people also sometimes reflect on how their present self hasevolved from past selves—a process that has been termed tempo-ral self–appraisal. Research in this area suggests that people gener-ally view the “current self” more favorably than “past selves” on avariety of attributes (e.g., Wilson & Ross, 2001; Woodruff &Birren, 1972). To our knowledge, connections betweencounterfactual thinking and temporal self–appraisal have notbeen studied empirically (for an interesting theoretical analysis,see the Reflection–Evaluation Model by Markman & McMullen,2003).

Second, we investigated the effect of temporal framing oncounterfactual thinking and self–appraisal. Past events can beframed in such a way as to make them seem either psychologi-cally close or psychologically distant (e.g., Ross & Wilson, 2003).We wondered if the type of counterfactual thoughts people gen-erate, as well as the pattern of their temporal self–appraisals,might vary depending on whether the contemplated event comesfrom their recent or distant psychological past.

Third, we examined possible individual differences incounterfactual thinking and temporal self–appraisal. Researchershave generally ignored potential personality moderators ofcounterfactual thinking (one exception is the dimension ofself–esteem—see Kasimatis & Wells, 1995; Roese & Olson, 1993),and we are unaware of any research on individual differences in

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temporal self–appraisal. We investigated whether two personal-ity dimensions, uncertainty orientation and achievement motiva-tion, are related to these forms of self–reflection.

In the following paragraphs, we briefly review the relevant lit-erature and articulate our hypotheses.

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING

In research on counterfactual thinking, theorists have distin-guished between upward and downward counterfactualthoughts (e.g., Johnson & Sherman, 1990; Markman et al., 1993;Roese, 1994). These directions refer to the relative favorability ofthe hypothetical event compared to the actual event. Upwardcounterfactual thoughts focus on how things might have turnedout better than they actually did (e.g., “If I had studied longer, Iwould have passed the test instead of failing”), whereas down-ward counterfactual thoughts focus on how things could haveturned out worse than they actually did (e.g., “If I hadn’t boughtthat lottery ticket, I wouldn’t have won the prize”).

Why do people generate counterfactual thoughts at all? Per-haps most importantly, counterfactual thoughts haveattributional implications that can illuminate the causes of out-comes (see Mandel & Lehman, 1996; Roese, 1994, 1997). When in-dividuals think about how things could have turned outdifferently (e.g., “If I had studied harder, I would have passed thetest instead of failing”), they identify factors that caused the out-come (e.g., not studying hard enough). Recognition of these fac-tors might serve a preparatory function for future outcomes (e.g.,the individual might study harder for the next test). This functionis likely to be served primarily by upward counterfactualthoughts, which contemplate potentially better outcomes.

The findings of Nasco and Marsh (1999) provide support for theidea that the generation of upward counterfactual thoughts canserve a preparatory function. Immediately after receiving theirgrades on a midterm test, participants were asked to generatecounterfactual thoughts about their test performance. Path analy-ses revealed that the generation of upward counterfactuals pre-dicted greater perceived control of future test situations;

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increases in perceived control, in turn, predicted actual improve-ment in grades on a test taken a few weeks later.

The importance or centrality to counterfactual thinking of thispreparative function is highlighted by evidence that negative out-comes stimulate more counterfactual thoughts, and especiallymore upward counterfactual thoughts, than do positive events(see Boninger, Gleicher, & Strathman, 1994; Gavanski & Wells,1989; Roese, 1994; Roese & Olson, 1997; Sanna & Turley, 1996).Negative events signal a failure to cope effectively with the envi-ronment and motivate people to understand what happened.Counterfactual thinking appears to be one strategy people use toaccomplish this goal.

TEMPORAL SELF–APPRAISAL

By and large, people in Western cultures engage in highly posi-tive self–evaluation: they judge the “current self” as better thanaverage on a wide range of abilities and positive attributes (e.g.,Baumeister, 1998; Brown, 1986; Dunning, Meyerowitz, &Holzberg, 1989; Greenwald, 1980; Kreuger, 1998). This self–en-hancing pattern of self–evaluation has numerous consequencesthat are often beneficial, including increased persistence on tasks,greater self–confidence, and more positive mood (see Taylor &Brown, 1988; Taylor et al., 2000).

Inflating or overestimating one’s present abilities too much,however, may be harmful: it may result in unrealistic expecta-tions of success and/or lead others to see one as egotistical (e.g.,Baumeister, 1989; Colvin & Block, 1994; Paulhus, 1998). How,then, does one go about maintaining a positive perception of theself without maladaptively over–exaggerating one’s currenttraits and abilities? Biased temporal self–appraisal provides oneroute: recent research by Wilson and Ross (2001; Ross & Wilson,2002) suggests that people often portray certain aspects of the cur-rent self in a favorable light by derogating past versions of the self,thus creating a belief (potentially illusory) that they haveimproved over time.

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For example, Wilson and Ross (2001, Study 3) had a sample ofuniversity students rate themselves on a series of personality at-tributes at the beginning of the semester. About two months later,the participants re–rated themselves on the same personality at-tributes, both presently and retrospectively (i.e., how they be-lieved they had responded two months earlier). Results showedthat participants’ retrospective estimates of how they rated them-selves at the beginning of the semester were significantly lowerthan both their actual beginning–of–semester self–ratings andtheir present self–ratings; there was no significant difference be-tween their actual ratings at time 1 and time 2. Thus, participantsperceived improvement on several self–attributes when no suchimprovement actually occurred, and this sense of improvementwas achieved by retrospectively derogating past versions of theself (see also Conway & Ross, 1984).

TEMPORAL FRAMING

Individuals’ subjective perceptions of time can be manipulated soas to make a prior event feel either closer to or further from thepresent. Such temporal framing can influence the emotional impactof the event. For example, Ross and Wilson (2003) reported astudy in which they presented one of two versions of a timeline toa group of first year university students, who were asked to markon the timeline either a positive or a negative personal experiencethat had happened in their final year of high school. For some par-ticipants, the timeline was labelled “birth” at one end and “pres-ent” at the other end; these participants were expected to indicatethat their high school event was relatively close to the “present”end of the timeline. For other participants, the timeline was la-belled “age 16” at one end and “present” at the other end; theseparticipants were expected to indicate that their high school eventwas further away from the “present” end of the timeline.

The authors found that participants reported feeling psycho-logically closer to the event (whether it was positive or negative)when the timeline was constructed so as to lead them to mark the

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event close to, rather than far from, the “present” on the timeline.Further, the same event had a stronger effect on ratings of the cur-rent self when it was framed as being psychologically close thanwhen it was framed as being psychologically distant. Thus,events that are perceived as recent appear to have more emotionalor psychological impact than events perceived as distant.

In the present study, we examined the impact of temporal fram-ing on counterfactual thinking and temporal self–appraisal. Interms of counterfactual thinking, we expected that negative eventsperceived as recent would be more motivating (threatening) and,therefore, would elicit upward counterfactual thoughts morestrongly than negative events perceived as distant. Consistent withpast research (e.g., Roese & Olson, 1997), positive events were ex-pected to be relatively unmotivating with regard to counterfactualthinking and, therefore, to produce a mix of upward and downwardcounterfactual thoughts irrespective of temporal framing. In termsof self–appraisal, we predicted that negative events perceived as re-cent would motivate participants to derogate the past self morestrongly (thereby enhancing the relative standing of the current self)than would negative events perceived as distant. Again, positiveevents were expected to be less threatening and, therefore, to elicitlittle derogation of the past self irrespective of temporal framing.

Our prediction for counterfactual thoughts may appear to runcounter to the results of Sanna, Chang, and Carter (2004), who in-vestigated how the actual temporal closeness of an event influ-enced counterfactual thinking. Participants in Sanna et al.’s studygenerated thoughts about a negative or a positive outcome, eitherimmediately after the outcome or three months later. Resultsshowed that the negative outcome elicited more counterfactualthoughts than the positive outcome, and this difference wasgreater three months after the event than immediately after-wards. But the actual passage of time allows individuals to thinkabout an event more extensively, including alternative outcomesthat might have occurred. In the present research, we manipu-lated the subjective perception of temporal distance, which con-trolled the actual opportunity to think counterfactually about theevent. When actual recency was controlled, we expected greaterpsychological recency to increase the tendency to generate upwardcounterfactual thoughts after a negative event.

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INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

We also investigated in the present study the possible moderatingroles of two individual difference variables, one that relates to in-formation processing (uncertainty orientation) and one that re-lates to affective responses to achievement outcomes(achievement motivation).

Uncertainty Orientation. The theory of uncertainty orientation(Sorrentino & Roney, 2000; Sorrentino & Short, 1986; Sorrentino,Smithson, Hodson, Roney, & Walker, 2003) is a formal theory ofself–regulation that asserts that people differ in how they handleuncertainty. At opposite ends of a continuum are individuals con-sidered uncertainty–oriented (UOs) and certainty–oriented (COs).For UOs, the preferred method of handling uncertainty is to seekout information and engage in activity that will directly resolve theuncertainty. These are the “need to know” type of people who tryto understand and explore aspects of the self and the environmentabout which they are uncertain. COs, on the other hand, possess aself–regulatory style that circumvents uncertainty confrontation.Given the choice, COs will undertake activity that maintains cur-rent conceptualizations of self and environment.

For instance, in a seminal study by Sorrentino and Hewitt(1984), participants had an opportunity to obtain new informa-tion about an important ability, where the information was likelyto be positive in one condition but negative in another. UOs dis-played a desire to resolve the uncertainty about their ability re-gardless of the valence of the likely outcome. COs, on the otherhand, chose not to resolve the uncertainty, again regardless ofwhether the outcome was likely to be positive or negative. Astudy that bears some similarities to the present research was con-ducted by Walker and Sorrentino (2000). Participants were askedto imagine a number of positive and negative events happeningto themselves and then generated questions they would askabout the causes of the events. UOs showed the typical negativeoutcome bias seen in previous research (e.g., Wong & Weiner,1981), asking more questions following negative events than pos-itive events, presumably because negative events elicited a stron-ger motive to understand. COs asked few questions regardless ofevent and showed no evidence of a negative outcome bias.

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How might uncertainty orientation relate to counterfactualthinking? Counterfactual thinking arouses uncertainty about theself, because it contemplates hypothetical outcomes. Also, think-ing about negative past experiences elicits uncertainty becausenegative events represent failures to deal effectively with the en-vironment. If the typical pattern of more upward than downwardcounterfactual thoughts following a negative outcome resultsfrom self–evaluation and uncertainty, then it is more likely to oc-cur for UOs than for COs. Further, this difference should be en-hanced for a psychologically recent negative event, compared to adistant negative event, because subjective recency shouldincrease the event’s motivational significance.

With regard to temporal self–appraisal, the tendency to dero-gate the past self makes individuals feel good by implying thatthey have improved. But perceiving change—even positivechange—elicits self–evaluation and highlights the uncertainty ofthe self (see Sorrentino & Roney, 2000). Therefore, derogation ofthe past self should be exhibited more by UOs than by COs. Fur-ther, because derogation of the past self was expected primarilyfor psychologically recent negative events, UOs and COs wereexpected to differ mainly in this condition.

Achievement Motivation. We also examined the possible role ofachievement–related motives in counterfactual thinking andtemporal appraisal. This dimension distinguishes between suc-cess–oriented individuals, who are positively motivated bypride in success, and failure–threatened individuals, who arenegatively motivated by fear of failure (Atkinson, 1964;Atkinson & Feather, 1966; Atkinson & Raynor, 1974). Thus, suc-cess–oriented individuals (SOs) focus on obtaining accomplish-ments, whereas failure–threatened individuals (FTs) focus onavoiding disasters (Roney & Sorrentino, 1995). In other words,the principal source of motivation for SOs is successful out-comes, whereas the principal source of motivation for FTs isunsuccessful outcomes.

How might achievement motivation relate to counterfactualthinking? Counterfactual thoughts are most likely to occur afternegative outcomes. Negative outcomes are a type of failure—in-dividuals have failed to navigate their environment effectively. Ifnegative outcomes are more motivating for failure–threatened in-

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dividuals (FTs) than for success–oriented individuals (SOs), thenFTs should generate more upward counterfactual thoughts abouta negative event than SOs. Further, this difference should be en-hanced for a psychologically recent negative event, which ispresumably more motivating than a distant negative event.

With regard to temporal self–appraisal, if negative outcomesare more motivating for FTs than SOs, then the former individu-als should derogate the past self associated with a negative eventmore than the latter individuals. Further, this difference shouldbe greater for a psychologically recent negative event than adistant negative event.

HYPOTHESES

The formal hypotheses for the current study were: (a) participantsare more likely to generate upward than downwardcounterfactual thoughts following a negative event as opposed toa positive event, (b) participants are more likely to retrospectivelyderogate a past self tied to a negative event than one linked to apositive event, (c) for both (a) and (b), this difference will begreater when the event is perceived as having occurred in the re-cent past as opposed to the distant past, because the recent framewill increase the emotional significance of the event, and (d) thesepredicted patterns of interaction are more likely to occur for UOsthan COs, and (e) for FTs than SOs.

METHOD

PARTICIPANTS

Three hundred and seventy–six undergraduate psychology stu-dents at the University of Western Ontario participated in the ex-periment as partial fulfillment of introductory courserequirements. The students participated in a mass testing sessionin groups of three to 20, completing a package containing sixquestionnaire booklets, four of which were associated with thepresent experiment. Individuals were randomly assigned to oneof four conditions, as their questionnaire package contained one

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combination of positive vs. negative event × recent vs. distantframing. Of the 376 participants in the initial analysis, 274 were fe-male, 100 were male, and two failed to report their gender. Theages of these participants ranged from 16 to 29 (M = 18.73). Whenthe participants had been scored for uncertainty orientation andachievement motivation, 208 participants who fell in the moder-ate range of either of the individual difference variables weredropped (see below for explanation). This left a final sample of168 participants (124 females, 43 males, one unknown), ranging inage from 16 to 29 (M = 18.88).

MATERIALSTemporal self–appraisal. The temporal self–appraisal portion of

the questionnaire was adopted from Wilson and Ross (2001). Par-ticipants were asked to rate themselves (first currently, then at aspecific time in the past) on the extent to which they possessed 10personality attributes as compared to their peers: seven positiveattributes (e.g., socially skilled, independent, satisfied with life)and three negative attributes (e.g., narrow–minded, immature).The responses were made on 11–point scales ranging from 0(much less than most [same–aged peers]) to 5 (same as most) to 10(much more than most). Responses on the 10 attributes weresummed for each time frame such that higher scores reflectedmore positive self–appraisals.

The life event manipulation was an open–ended question ask-ing people to describe an interpersonal event (positive or nega-tive, depending on condition) that had occurred around the endof the previous school year (June for first–year students, April fornon–first–year students). This range of time was chosen becausethe end of the school year (especially the end of high school) is atime that usually involves significant moments in interpersonalrelationships with parents, friends, teachers, and so on. The ma-jority of the participants in the study had been in school the previ-ous spring; those who were not were included in the analysis ifthey described an important interpersonal event that hadoccurred during the critical time period.

The time frame manipulation asked participants to place a slashon a horizontal line flanked by two endpoints (either “birth—the

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present” or “January—the present”) at the point in time that thedescribed event had occurred. The purpose of this manipulationwas to make the interpersonal event feel either psychologicallymore recent or more distant. (Presumably, the birth—presenttimeline makes the event seem more recent because the slash isplaced physically closer to “the present” on the timeline.)

Counterfactual thought task. The counterfactual thought–listingprocedure was adopted from Roese (1994). Participants weregiven a brief definition of counterfactual thoughts and four exam-ples of these thoughts; they were then instructed to list anycounterfactual thoughts they had pertaining to the positive ornegative interpersonal event they had described earlier.

Uncertainty orientation. Uncertainty orientation was assessedusing the resultant measure of uncertainty orientation(Sorrentino, Hanna, & Roney, 1992). This measure consists of twoindependent components: nUncertainty and Authoritarianism.nUncertainty assesses an individual’s need to resolve uncertaintywithin the self and the environment, whereas authoritarianismassesses the individual’s desire to maintain clarity. The rationalefor assessing uncertainty orientation via two separate measuresstems from research conducted by Atkinson and Feather (1966)on the development of approach and avoidant measures of per-sonality dimensions. This research clearly demonstrated that twouncorrelated measures have greater predictive validity whenused together as opposed to using either single measure alone.Following this approach, Sorrentino and Short (1986) establishedthat one’s desire to resolve uncertainty is independent of the de-sire to maintain clarity. Hence, one could be simultaneously highor low on one or both of these dimensions. These researchers feltthat a resultant measure of uncertainty orientation, one that con-trols for both desires, would offer a more precise assessment thanany single measure. This assumption has been borne out innumerous studies (see Sorrentino, Roney, & Hanna, 1992, for areview).

The scoring system for the resultant uncertainty measure issimilar to that used by Atkinson (1958) to assess achievement. Inthe current study, the scorer reached a reliability of above .90 withthe scoring manual (Sorrentino, Hanna, & Roney, 1992) and witha second expert scorer. Following the standardized procedure

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recommended by Atkinson (1958) and adapted by Sorrentino,Short, & Raynor (1984), uncertainty was assessed by having par-ticipants generate stories from a series of four sentence leads, pre-sented one sentence at a time. The leads were: (a) “Two people areworking in a laboratory on a piece of equipment,” (b) “A person issitting, wondering about what may happen,” (c) “A person isseated at a desk with a computer and books,” and (d) “A person isthinking: An image of a crossroads is in the person’s mind.” Thesentences were followed by four “prompt” questions to facilitatestory writing: (a) “What is happening? Who is (are) the per-son(s)?” (b) “What has led up to the situation? That is, what hashappened in the past?” (c) “What is being thought? What iswanted? By whom?” and (d) “What will happen? What will bedone?” A composite score of uncertainty was calculated based onimagery scores obtained from the four stories. Stories were scoredfor uncertainty imagery if they contained reference to the goal ofresolving or approaching uncertainty. If the stories met this crite-rion, they were then scored on ten subcategories. A range ofscores between –1 (no uncertainty imagery) and 11 (highest possi-ble amount of uncertainty imagery) were possible for each story.Scores for the four stories were summed together to generate eachindividual’s total score.

Authoritarianism was assessed using Cherry and Byrne’s(1977) acquiescence–free measure of authoritarianism. This mea-sure can be used to infer certainty because those who score highon authoritarianism tend to orient towards familiar and certainsituations (Kirscht & Dillehay, 1967). The measure has 21 items,rated on six–point scales. Test–retest reliability above .90 has beendemonstrated for both men and women (Sorrentino, 1977).

Participants’ scores on the authoritarianism measure weretransformed to z–scores and subtracted from nUncertaintyz–scores to produce the resultant measure of uncertainty orienta-tion (see Sorrentino, Hanna, & Roney, 1992). A tertile split then di-vided the sample into an uncertainty–oriented group (thosescoring in the highest third on the resultant measure), a cer-tainty–oriented group (those scoring in the lowest third), andmoderates (those scoring in the middle third). Research bySorrentino and Short (1977) showed that individuals with moder-ate scores on a number of different motive measures (e.g.,

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nAchievement, nPower, nAffiliation, test anxiety, fear of social re-jection) exhibit a pervasive inconsistency on a variety of behav-ioral measures. That is, moderate scorers unpredictably behave athigher or lower levels than individuals with high or low scores onthe same motive measure. Similar results have been found withthe resultant measure of uncertainty orientation (see Sorrentino,Roney, & Hanna, 1992). More recently, computer simulations ofthe mathematical formulation of the theory supported the notionthat moderates on uncertainty orientation vacillate erratically(Sorrentino et al., 2003). Based on the evidence indicating that theinclusion of moderate scores may produce unreliable results, thepresent report focuses on individuals in the high and low groups(i.e., UOs and COs). Although categorical analyses were used inthe principal analyses, regression analyses were also performedfor purposes of comparison.

Achievement motivation. As with uncertainty orientation, sepa-rate measures were used to infer the motive to succeed and themotive to avoid failure (e.g., see Atkinson & Raynor, 1974). Themotive to succeed was assessed from a projective measure(nAchievement) that is scored from the same stories as thosescored for nUncertainty. Scoring for nAchievement was done byan expert scorer whose scoring correlated .90 or better with mate-rials provided by Smith and Feld (1958), and with another expertscorer. The criteria for scoring nAchievement were outlined byMcClelland, Atkinson, Clark, and Lowell (1958); in general, thesecriteria involve a character showing affective concern aboutattaining an achievement goal.

Fear of failure was assessed by the Test Anxiety Questionnaire(Mandler & Sarason, 1952), involving 12 items answered onsix–point scales. This measure assesses the extent to which anxi-ety is experienced in testing situations and has been shown tohave good test–retest reliability, r(94) = .71, p < .001 (Sorrentino,1987).

The resultant measure of achievement–related motives isformed by standardizing test–anxiety scores and subtractingthem from standardized nAchievement scores. Categorizationprocedures were identical to those used for uncertainty orienta-tion: people scoring in the upper tertile were categorized as suc-cess–oriented, and those in the bottom tertile were categorized as

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failure–threatened. The same rationale holds for the combinationof these measures: participants are identified who clearly andstrongly have one orientation or the other, because those withcompeting tendencies would be difficult to predict. Extensive re-search attests to the validity of this measure (e.g., see Atkinson &Feather, 1966; Atkinson & Raynor, 1974; Sorrentino & Roney,1986; Sorrentino, Short & Raynor, 1984).

PROCEDURE

When participants arrived for the experiment, they were seated atindividual desks in a psychology lab room used for mass testing.The sign–ups fluctuated, thus resulting in sessions run withgroups of 3 to 20 participants. Before the experimental session be-gan, each participant received an envelope containing six ques-tionnaire booklets. The experimenter first provided verbalinstructions to guide people through the initial questionnairebooklet (used to measure nUncertainty and nAchievement). Par-ticipants first read a sentence; on the following page were fourquestions that they were supposed to answer to write the plot of astory based on the sentence, with the restriction that they hadonly 1 min to answer each question. The experimenter told partic-ipants when to begin answering the first question, and at intervalsof 1 min, instructed everyone to move on to the next question.This story–writing procedure was repeated three more timeswith different sentences.

When the first booklet was finished, participants were in-structed to remove the other five booklets from the envelope andcomplete them in order, at their own pace. The remaining ques-tionnaires were always completed in the same order, with thetemporal self–appraisal booklet always being number five (out ofsix). Within the temporal self–appraisal booklet, the order was asfollows: On the first page, participants completed the currentself–rating scale. The second page required participants to de-scribe a positive or negative life event, and then put a slashthrough the timeline at the bottom of the page. The order of thethird and fourth pages was counterbalanced. One page askedparticipants to rate themselves on the same attributes as the first

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page, but as compared to their peers at the time of the interper-sonal event. The other page asked participants to list anycounterfactual thoughts they had pertaining to the event.

RESULTS

MANIPULATION CHECK

A 2 (valence of event: positive–negative) × 2 (time frame: re-cent–distant) × 2 (uncertainty orientation: UOs–COs) × 2(achievement motivation: SOs–FTs) ANOVA was performed,with the distance between a person’s slash representing the targetevent on the timeline and the endpoint “today” as the dependentvariable. The temporal framing manipulation was successful:participants in the recent frame condition marked the event as be-ing closer to the present (M = 2.54 cm) than did participants in thedistant frame condition (M = 8.20 cm), F(1,150) = 253.75, p < .001.No other main effects or interactions were significant in theanalysis of this measure.

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING

Counterfactual thoughts were coded as being upward, down-ward, or non–counterfactual by two independent raters whoseclassifications reached an inter–rater reliability of over .90. Eachindividual’s total downward counterfactual thoughts was thensubtracted from his or her total upward counterfactual thoughtsto yield a single score that reflected the preferential generation ofpreparatory (upward) thoughts.

A 2 (valence of event) × 2 (time frame) × 2 (uncertainty orienta-tion) × 2 (achievement motivation) ANOVA was conducted onthis difference score. The main effect for valence of event was sig-nificant, F(1,151) = 48.62, p < .001. Consistent with previous re-search on counterfactual thinking (e.g., Roese, 1994; Roese &Olson, 1997; Sanna & Turley, 1996), negative events yielded moreupward counterfactual thoughts than downward counterfactualthoughts (M difference score = 0.78, SD = 1.32), whereas positive

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events led to fewer upward than downward counterfactualthoughts (M difference score = –0.86, SD = 1.48).1

The predicted three–way interaction between valence of event,time frame, and uncertainty orientation also emerged, F(1,151) =4.05, p < .05, η2 = .03. As seen in the right half of Figure 1, uncer-tainty–oriented individuals generated more upward (vs. down-ward) counterfactual thoughts after thinking about a negative eventthan did certainty–oriented individuals, but this difference was sub-stantial only in the recent–frame condition (UOs, M = 1.58, SE = 0.55;COs, M = 0.23, SE = 0.34). This pattern of two–way interaction in thenegative event condition, contrasting UOs’ and COs’ responses torecent versus distant negative events, was significant, t(151) = –1.69,p < .05, 2 = .01. Further, the pairwise contrast between UOs and COs

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1. When the same analysis was performed on the full sample of 376 participants (i.e.,without excluding participants who fell in the moderate range of either of the individualdifference variables), similar results were obtained. The main effect for valence of eventwas significant on the difference scores, F(1,333) = 108.16, p < .001. This main effect reflectedthat negative events yielded more upward than downward counterfactual thoughts (Mdifference score = 0.85, SD = 1.39), whereas positive events led to fewer upward thandownward counterfactual thoughts (M difference score = –0.78, SD = 1.40).

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FIGURE 1. Difference in counterfactual thoughts (upward minus downward) as a function ofvalence of event (positive [pos] vs. negative [neg]), time frame (recent [rec] vs. distant [dist])and uncertainty orientation (uncertainty-oriented [UO] vs. certainty-oriented [CO]).

for the recent negative event was also significant, t(151) = 2.60, p <.01, ω2 = .03, whereas UOs and COs did not differ in the distant nega-tive event condition. Counterfactual thoughts following a positiveevent did not differ significantly between UOs and COs irrespectiveof the time frame (the left half of Figure 1).

A significant three–way interaction between valence of event,time frame, and achievement motivation was also obtained,F(1,151) = 7.72, p < .01, η2 = .05. As seen in the right half of Figure 2,following the description of a recent–framed negative event, fail-ure–threatened participants generated more upward (versusdownward) counterfactual thoughts (M = 1.65, SE = 0.53) thandid their success–oriented counterparts (M = 0.17, SE = 0.37),whereas a tendency in the opposite direction occurred in the dis-tant negative event condition. This pattern of two–way interac-tion (achievement motivation × time frame) in the negative eventcondition was significant, t(151) = 3.47, p < .001, ω2 = .06. Further,the pairwise contrast between FTs and SOs for the recent negativeevent was significant, t(151) = 3.00, p < .01, ω2 = .05, whereas FTsand SOs did not differ significantly in the distant negative eventcondition. As shown in the left half of Figure 2, counterfactual

TEMPORAL FRAMING 355

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FIGURE 2. Difference in counterfactual thoughts (upward minus downward) as a function ofvalence of event (positive [pos] vs. negative [neg]), time frame (recent [rec] vs. distant [dist])and achievement orientation (success-oriented [SO] vs. failure-threatened [FT]).

thoughts following a positive event were similar for FTs and SOsirrespective of the time frame.2

TEMPORAL SELF–APPRAISAL

Current self–ratings for the positive and negative event groupswere nearly identical, Ms = 67.38 and 67.02, respectively. We cal-culated the difference between current and past self–ratings bysubtracting past from current ratings. A 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVA wasthen performed on this current/past self–rating difference score,with valence of event, timeline frame, uncertainty orientation,and achievement motivation as between–subjects variables.

The analysis revealed a significant main effect for valence ofevent, F(1,152) = 48.31, p < .001. Consistent with previous findings(e.g., Ross & Wilson, 2002; Wilson & Ross, 2001), participants in thenegative event condition rated their past self as being less favorablethan their current self (M difference = 9.69), whereas participantswho had described a positive event rated their past self as beingjust as favorable as their current self (M difference = –0.96).3

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2. Although our hypotheses were stated in terms of differences between upward anddownward counterfactual thoughts, we expected that the manipulations would primarilyaffect the generation of upward counterfactuals. A set of analyses that focused only on up-ward counterfactual thoughts yielded parallel differences to the analyses using differencescores. Specifically, in the recent–framed negative event condition, uncertainty–orientedindividuals generated more upward counterfactual thoughts (M = 1.97, SE = 0.32) than didcertainty–oriented individuals (M = 1.18, SE = 0.20), t(151) = 2.61, p < .01. These two groupsdid not differ in any other condition (distant–framed negative event; recent– or dis-tant–framed positive event).

Similarly, in the recent–framed negative event condition, failure–threatened partici-pants generated more upward counterfactual thoughts (M = 1.85, SE = 0.31) than did theirsuccess–oriented counterparts (M = 1.31, SE = 0.21), t(151) = 1.89, p < .05. A difference in theopposite direction occurred in the distant–framed negative event condition, where SO in-dividuals generated more upward counterfactual thoughts (M = 1.82, SE = 0.16) than didFT individuals (M = 1.42, SE = 0.19), t(151) = –1.74, p < .05. These two groups did not differ ineither of the positive event conditions.

3. Again, an identical main effect was obtained when the data from the full sample wasanalyzed, F(1,335) = 78.46, p < .001, which reflected that a negative event elicited larger dif-ferences between current and past selves (M difference score = 8.00) than did a positiveevent (M difference score = –1.27).

This main effect, however, was qualified by two significant in-teractions. First, a significant three–way interaction between va-lence of event, time frame, and uncertainty orientation emerged,F(1,152) = 5.51, p < .05, η2 = .04. As displayed on the right half ofFigure 3, when the negative interpersonal event was framed asbeing recent, uncertainty–oriented individuals (M = 21.53, SE =3.92) derogated their past selves more than did certainty–ori-ented individuals (M = 9.05, SE = 2.42). When, however, the nega-tive event was framed as being distant, UOs did not derogatetheir past selves (M = 4.13, SE = 2.42) more than COs (M = 10.37,SE = 1.78). This pattern of two–way interaction within the nega-tive event condition, contrasting UOs’ and COs’ responses to re-cent versus distant negative events, was significant, t(152) = –3.93,p < .001, 2 = .08. Further, the pairwise contrast between UOs andCOs for the recent negative event was significant, t(152) = 3.34, p <.001, ω2 = .06, whereas UOs and COs did not differ significantly inthe distant negative event condition. As seen in the left half of Fig-ure 3, the self–ratings of UOs and COs after describing a positiveevent did not differ.

The interaction between valence of event, time frame, andachievement motivation was also significant, F(1,152) = 5.29, p <.05, η2 = .03. As seen in the right half of Figure 4, following a re-cent–framed negative event (but not a distant–framed negativeevent), FT individuals derogated their past selves (M = 23.47, SE =3.78) significantly more than did SO individuals (M = 7.11, SE =2.64). The pattern of two–way interaction between achievementmotivation and time frame within the negative event conditionwas significant, t(152) = 3.90, p < .001, ω2 = .08. Also, the pairwisecontrast between FTs and SOs for the recent negative event wassignificant, t(152) = 4.60, p < .001, ω2 = .11, whereas FTs and SOs didnot differ in the distant negative event condition.4 As seen in the left

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4. In the present study, the measure of uncertainty orientation correlated positively withthe measure of achievement–related motives, r(371)= 0.22, p < .03, such that uncer-tainty–oriented individuals were more likely to be success–oriented than failure–threat-ened. Note that this relation cannot explain the similar patterns of responses by UOs andFTs (which would require a negative correlation).

half of Figure 4, the self–ratings of FTs and SOs did not differ aftera positive event.5

RELATION BETWEEN COUNTERFACTUALTHINKING AND TEMPORAL SELF–APPRAISAL

Within–cell correlations between participants’ counterfactualthoughts difference score (upward minus downward) and their

358 HAYNES ET AL.

5. Although our hypotheses were stated in terms of differences between ratings of thepresent versus past selves, we expected that the manipulations would primarily affect themore malleable past self. A set of analyses that focused only on ratings of the past selfyielded parallel differences to the analyses using difference scores. Specifically, in the re-cent–framed negative event condition, uncertainty–oriented individuals rated their pastselves less favorably (M = 50.19, SE = 4.87) than did certainty–oriented individuals (M =58.20, SE = 3.01), t(152) = –1.73, p < .05. These two groups did not differ in their ratings ofpast selves in any other condition (distant–framed negative event; recent– or dis-tant–framed positive event).

Similarly, in the recent–framed negative event condition, FT individuals rated their pastselves significantly less favorably (M = 45.78, SE = 4.69) than did SO individuals (M = 62.61,SE = 3.28), t(152) = –3.82, p < .001. These two groups did not differ in any other condition.

-5

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Dif

fere

nce

Sco

re

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sen

tM

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sP

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FIGURE 3. Difference in self-ratings (present minus past) as a function of valence of event(positive [pos] vs. negative [neg]), time frame (recent [rec] vs. distant [dist]) and uncertaintyorientation (uncertainty-oriented [UO] vs. certainty-oriented [CO]).

self–ratings difference score (present minus past) were calculatedin each of the four valence of event × time frame conditions. Thecorrelation was significant in the recent–framed negative eventcondition, r = .53, p < .01, indicating that participants who gener-ated mostly preparative (upward) counterfactual thoughts alsotended to derogate the past self relative to the current self. Thecorrelation was not significant in the other conditions. The corre-lation in the recent–framed negative event condition was signifi-cantly larger than the correlation in the distant–framed negativeevent condition (r = .07; Z = 2.18, p < .05), the recent–framed posi-tive event condition (r = –.12; Z = –2.93, p < .01), and the dis-tant–framed positive event condition (r = –.13; Z = 2.84, p < .01).

Within the recent–framed negative event condition, we per-formed additional within–cell correlations between thecounterfactual thought difference scores and self–ratings differ-ence scores amongst the two uncertainty orientation groups andamongst the two achievement motivation groups. Regarding un-certainty orientation, the correlation between the differencescores was found to be significant amongst both UOs (r = .60, p =

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FIGURE 4. Difference in self-ratings (present minus past) as a function of valence of event(positive [pos] vs. negative [neg]), time frame (recent [rec] vs. distant [dist]) and achievementorientation (success-oriented [SO] vs. failure-threatened [FT]).

.05) and COs (r = .49, p < .05), and the difference between these twogroups was not significant (Z = 0.36, ns). As for achievement moti-vation, the difference score correlation was significant amongstFTs (r = .64, p < .01), but not amongst SOs (r = .34, ns); the differ-ence between these groups was not significant (Z = 1.00, ns).

DISCUSSION

The results of the present study corroborate a well–establishedfinding in the counterfactual thinking literature (e.g., Roese, 1994)that negative events lead to the generation of predominantly up-ward counterfactuals, which presumably serve the function ofpreventing recurrence of the negative events (hypothesis a). Theresults also replicate Ross and Wilson’s (2002) finding regardingtemporal self–appraisal that individuals distance themselvesfrom prior personal negative events by retrospectively derogat-ing their past self at the time of the event (hypothesis b).

More importantly, the present study makes several novel con-tributions. First, the results show that temporal framing influ-ences both counterfactual thinking and self–appraisals. Wepredicted (hypothesis c) that the tendency for negative events tostimulate upward counterfactual thoughts and derogation of thepast self would be stronger when the events were framed as re-cent rather than distant. Although these two–way interactionswere not reliable across all participants, they did appear within(i.e., were subsumed by) significant three–way interactions in-volving the individual difference variables, which we discuss inthe following paragraphs. Thus, temporal framing influencedboth forms of self–reflection, but an individual differencesperspective was necessary to observe these effects.

Our findings strongly document the fruitfulness of an individualdifferences perspective in this domain. Two personality dimen-sions—uncertainty orientation and achievement motiva-tion—were shown to relate to both counterfactual thinking andtemporal self–appraisal. Thus, stable dispositional variables wereshown to affect the dynamics of people’s thoughts about pastevents and their evaluations of themselves in the past.

Thinking about a personal negative outcome, especially one that isframed as being in the recent past, can make individuals feel uncer-

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tain about the self. After all, recent negative outcomes indicate thatone did not deal effectively with the environment. Uncertainty–ori-ented individuals approach uncertainty and try to understand it;thus, recent negative outcomes should motivate them both to gener-ate upward counterfactual thoughts so as to understand the out-come, and also to make themselves feel better by derogating the pastself at the time of the event. Certainty–oriented individuals, on theother hand, prefer to avoid engaging in uncertainty resolution,which should inhibit both the generation of upward counterfactualthoughts and the perception of change over time that is implied byderogating the past self. Consistent with this reasoning, partici-pants’ uncertainty orientation in the present study moderated boththeir counterfactual thoughts about a recent negative event and theirratings of the self at the time of the event: UOs in the recent negativeevent condition generated a larger ratio of upward to downwardcounterfactual thoughts and derogated more strongly their past selfrelative to their current self compared to COs.

A similar pattern of results emerged for failure–threatened in-dividuals in contrast to success–oriented individuals. FTs typi-cally focus on avoiding failures; we expected, therefore, that theseindividuals would be motivated to generate upwardcounterfactual thoughts following consideration of a recent nega-tive personal event. The results supported this hypothesis, as FTsproduced more upward counterfactual thoughts in the re-cent–framed negative event condition than did SOs. Correspond-ingly, FTs derogated their past self at the time of the recentnegative event more than did SOs. A recent negative outcome ap-peared to be more motivating (or threatening) to FTs than to SOs,leading FTs both to consider how such outcomes could beavoided and to exaggerate how much the self had improved sincethe time of the event.6

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6. We should comment on the relation between achievement motivation and self–es-teem. It might seem plausible that the differences obtained for failure–threatened personswere due to chronic low self–esteem for these individuals. In fact, however, these two di-mensions are uncorrelated. For example, in a recent study by Sorrentino et al. (in press),nonsignificant correlations close to zero were found for both a Japanese and a Canadiansample (similar to the sample in the present study) between the resultant measure ofachievement motivation used in this study and items from Rosenberg’s (1965) measure ofself–esteem.

An interesting aspect of the findings for uncertainty orientationand achievement motivation is the divergent nature of the mecha-nisms presumed to underlie these dimensions (see Sorrentino,Hewitt, & Raso–Knott, 1992). From its conception (Sorrentino &Short, 1986), uncertainty orientation has been explained in termsof information value: the desire to attain or maintain understand-ing of the self and the world. Achievement–related motives, incontrast, have been explained since their inception (e.g.,Atkinson, 1964) in terms of affective value—finding pride in ac-complishment or avoiding shame over failure. Thus, the presentfindings indicate in a novel manner that counterfactual thinkingand temporal self–appraisal have connections to both cognitiveand affective mechanisms.

Finally, this study is the first (to our knowledge) to documentempirically that counterfactual thinking and temporal self–ap-praisal are related (see Markman & McMullen’s Reflec-tion–Evalaution Model, 2003, for a theoretical discussion of thislink). Specifically, the findings show that when a motivationallysignificant event (i.e., a recent negative outcome) is contemplated,counterfactual thinking and temporal self–appraisal can occur intandem. The positive correlation between the generation of up-ward counterfactual thoughts and the derogation of a past self inthe recent negative event condition suggests that, at least undercertain circumstances, these two forms of self–reflection springfrom similar sources. Those individuals who generated more up-ward than downward counterfactual thoughts about a negativeevent also exhibited greater derogation of the past self at the timeof the event. Although counterfactual thinking and biasedself–appraisal presumably fulfill different functions (avoiding fu-ture negative outcomes vs. enhancing current self–evaluation),they can occur together in response to an event that threatens theself.

In conclusion, we may fantasize about going back in time likeMarty McFly, either years or mere minutes, to prevent a costlymistake from happening in the first place. The best realistic alter-native, however, for righting past failures may be by generatingthoughts about how things could have turned out better, whichcan be used in future situations to avoid the same pitfalls. Addi-tionally, individuals can reduce the negative emotional impact of

362 HAYNES ET AL.

past failures by derogating their past self compared to the presentself. The findings of the present study suggest that people withdifferent personality traits may exhibit these patterns differen-tially. Individuals who are uncertainty–oriented or failure–threatened are most likely to generate upward counterfactualthoughts and to derogate past selves related to recent negativeoutcomes.

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